If a vet was fortunate enough to get an R&R in Sydney it was next best to coming home . We were literally kidnapped…checked out of the hotel , never paid for even a pk of smokes . Great people " drink yer piss mate "
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That’s the same treatment Aussies would receive here in the States. The difference is we’d let them shoot our AR15s. I worked with Brits during OIF and met some Aussies in Kuwait. Their Steyr Aug rifles were very cool, and they seemed to find our M4s equally interesting.
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Back in my day they kept the 7.62 much longer than we did . Aussies used to be a nation of rifleman as most were country boys & like us they like to eat . Unfortunately like the limeys they can ruin some good groceries…
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When I was in Kuwait for two weeks before I shipped of to Al Masan Province I ran into some Aussie military personnel at the smoke pit outside the AFEEs I always wondered who designed their camo and what purpose all the Pastel colors blended into.Was a trip every time I saw those multicolor Uniform fatigues they had.
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I understand there are some really amazing wild areas in Oz. As in the United States, country boys take to the military like ducks to water. Even though Aussies have to genuflect to the Crown, I’d wager they use terms like “royalty” as a pejorative like we Yanks do.
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i was in the Phillipines during the 1991 mount pinatubo eruption as apart of a disaster relief effort and at the same time the US military was moving out of Subic bay
you yanks are a laugh to do training exercises with thats for sure
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bought my first biggie smalls album in the px store at subic in 1991
and 5 or 6 bucks got me a litre of bourbon
ah the nineties
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How were we a laugh? For what it’s worth, I’m the first person to admit they US Army has serious problems.
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just funny guys to hang around with, some of the guys i worked with were from Mobile Alabama, hard to expain as im an Aussie, they would kinda make fun of people from different states of America, trying to do the accent as best they could, there was one state they keep making fun of cant remember now it was 30 years ago
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Our logistics being what they are, neither we nor anyone who works with us ever want for anything. Alcohol is prohibited on deployment, but we’ve got anything and everything else you could ever want.
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yeah i liked the soft serve icecream machine on the american bought FFG’s we had
we were allowed two beers a night when not at action stations,
(something to do with it being royal, sailors used to get a rum ration, back in the olden days)
two beers didnt do much so you ask a friend who doesnt drink to stand in line and give you his, so you had 4, or 6 etc…
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The US military can’t wait to bring down the Ban-hammer. I am fearful that our next war is going to be a massacre, like it was in the early days of the Korean War. Uncle Sam is doing a lot of the same things the Army did after WW2 ended, and it’s not going to end well. The early days of WW2 and the beginning of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were similar. It seems like the US military goes into every new war fully prepared to fight the last one, if they’re prepared for anything other than peacetime garrison activity.
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I was at NTC (National Training Center) in the desert in California, and I called my wife. About that same time, an ice cream truck came by, playing its song. My wife heard it and asked “Is that an ice cream truck?” She paused for a moment and remarked at how odd and even surreal that was. That was indeed a strange sight. However, that was nowhere near as strange as my very first combat patrol. We were greeted by the Peshmerga and the Kurds in general. We’d been told about it, but I had to see it to believe it: We were greeted by a bunch of dudes in desert cammies, with AKs, who were happy to see us. They were our allies, and some were even waving American flags. That whole day was bizarre. We made it to the compound in Erbil at night, and caught a few hours of sleep. When we woke up the next day, it was sunny, warm and the bird were chirping. I asked my buddy if maybe we had died on the way there, and if this was the afterlife. No gunfire or explosions and the temperature was perfect. We wondered aloud where the war we were supposed to be fighting was, because it sure as hell wasn’t anywhere near that compound.
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When you guys were in the sandbox , lot of us old fucks were shaking our heads . Seems you guys had to learn about IED’s the same f’ing way we did . Racing around in unarmored five-quarters fer fucks sake . Then when you had to go in & dig rats out their holes looked like Tet all over . Well we were trained to delay Soviet armor from overrunning Europe & we see how that worked trying to do counter-insurgency .
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yeap your right, i used the 7.62 L1a1 SLR alot, before it was replaced with the plastic Steyr 
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A real rifle . Can shoot thru a tree or a cinder block wall …xinh loi charley . Don’t understand the thought behind chopping 4" off an M16 barrel & having to use the steel core NATO crap . Totally fucked up the wound ballistics M193 out a 20" A1 vs new shit out a 16" M4 no contest . Unless kicking doors give me the xtra 4" . Even then I’d rather have an M3 grease gun & satchel full of frags
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When I joined, we were still being taught Cold War doctrine. The upper echelons were still preparing for thousands of Soviet tanks streaming through the Fulda Gap. The command style was very, very “top-down”, as we were expecting a large conventional conflict. That is the WORST leadership style in a counter-insurgency. Command did everything wrong in the Middle East (during the Global War On Terror) but Army doctrine is utterly inflexible. The fact that the highest echelons were actually trying to drag it out ensured our defeat. We were pouring a billion dollars a week into that country because politicians and shareholders (often the same people) wanted to keep making money. Even the lower ranking officers saw it as an opportunity for awards and promotions. The highest echelons weren’t going to let something like victory stand in the way of profits. People praising politicians made (and still do) me furious beyond words. They thought the pay raises we got and the new toys were worth the 1000% increase in the OPTEMPO.
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Don’t know what’s worse our naive foreign policy or letting politicans set your ROE’s . I got out in '73 'cause it was unreal then . I have no earthly idea how you’re supposed to train people under current restrictions . Walk in any VFW , we’re all concerned about the current junta’s fixation with idealogical purity . Reality & facts be damned . If it fails it must be good , let’s double,tripple down on it . I feel the need to lower my BP …
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Look at it this way: It’s their fucking problem now. Nobody with even half a brain is going to invade the country. Ironically, it’s the same people tasked with protecting us (police and military) have become our greatest threat. That’s how it was in the Army. I was more afraid of what command would do to me than what the enemy would. I had one company commander who would have deserve getting fragged. The problem was he and the battalion commander were a couple of weasel-dicks who saw eye-to-eye on way too many issues.
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When the tree’s rotten , it’s from the top down . The stripped pants are civil servants in mindset & if they got the ring …damn neigh insufferable . The good ones don’t last for the same reason that true leaders are a threat to SOP. The book aint how we roll , it’s to choke down mutinous dogs capable of independent thought
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